Page 52 of A Murder in Mayfair
That drew an immediate reaction from Lady Danforth, seated nearby. Her fan paused mid-wave, and after a quick glance around the room, she leaned closer and dropped her voice to a whisper.
“My dear, do not touch anything connected to that,” she said, eyes narrowing with the memory. “My husband was taken in by such a scheme not eight months ago—Nevada, I believe. Or possibly Colorado. The company claimed they’d struck a rich vein and offered shares to a very select few. All looked aboveboard. He lost eight thousand pounds before we realized it was nothing but smoke and mirrors.”
Claire blinked, just enough to suggest surprise. “How dreadful.”
“Utterly humiliating,” Lady Danforth muttered, fanning herself once more. “And quite impossible to recover as the person who talked him into it is quite dead.”
“You don’t mean ... ?” Claire wondered, all wide-eyed.
“Walsh.”
“The gall of the man," Lady Pickering declared, gesturing with a spoonful of lemon curd. "To sell shares in a mine that doesn’t even exist! My cousin lost three thousand pounds. She had to part with her diamonds."
"Diamonds! My dear, Lady Wilmot had to let go of her footman. And she was particularly fond of him.”
“He promised everyone they’d be independently wealthy,” Lady Farnsworth added, lowering her voice as if sharing the secrets of the Crown.
Offering a carefully arranged expression of concern, I leaned toward Claire and whispered, "We need more names.”
“Was any other lady involved?” Claire asked.
“Mrs. Greystone,” remarked a marchioness I barely recognized. Clearly, I hadn’t spoken as discreetly as I’d thought. “She was seen leaving Walsh House close to midnight—just a few days before his death. There was no earthly reason for her to have visited Lady Walsh, as she was not acquainted with her. And most especially that late at night. She could have invested in this silver mine.”
Mrs. Greystone was wealthy, discreet, and universally regarded as beyond reproach—which, in society, almost always meant she had something to hide.
There was a beat of silence, the kind that settles when something uncomfortable has been said aloud. Then Lady Farnsworth, ever the one to steer conversation in a direction she found more manageable—or perhaps more delicious—turned to me with a sympathetic tilt of her head.
“And how is Lady Walsh faring these days?” she asked, her voice honeyed with just enough pity to sting. “Such a difficult time for her, I’m sure.”
I placed my teacup down with care. “She is managing as well as can be expected, thank you.”
“She’s staying with you at Rosehaven House, isn’t she?” asked another lady. I couldn’t recall her name, only that she had a chin like a small anvil and the self-righteousness to match. “How admirable of you to take her in.”
There was no mistaking the tone, nor the glint in her eye. And then, as if she couldn’t help herself, she added sweetly, “Though I do wonder how long Lord Nicholas will remain such a devoted visitor. These things tend to become ... complicated.”
She paused just long enough to sip her tea and let the silence stretch, then added, as if idly, “And of course, it must be ever so convenient for him now that Lady Walsh is under your roof. Far fewer proprieties to navigate when one doesn’t have to knock at her own front door.”
The room went very still. Fans fluttered. Cups were quietly set down. I felt Claire shift slightly beside me.
I smiled, calm and cold. “Lord Nicholas is a family friend, nothing more.”
“If you say so, dear,” she replied with a smile as thin as lace. I could tell she didn’t believe a word of it.
Lady Farnsworth gave a delicate shiver and fluttered her fan. “Walsh was never particularly charming, was he? Always prowling about like he knew something you didn’t. But really—cards at church, as they say.”
Claire raised a brow, her voice deceptively casual. “Are you saying he cheated?”
“Oh, brazenly,” Lady Farnsworth replied. “At Lord Bickerstaff’s, last winter. My cousin was livid. Of course, she couldn’t prove a thing. Walsh had a gift for making the honest appear hysterical.”
The conversation drifted after that, turning toward corset styles and the scandalous behavior of someone’s niece who had allegedly danced with an actor onstage. But I had heard enough. The useful part of the afternoon was over.
I leaned slightly toward Claire, lifting my napkin as if to dab at my lips, and murmured behind it, “Do be a dear and fake an indisposition.”
Claire gave the faintest flicker of a smile—barely more than a tightening at the corners of her mouth—then pressed a hand to her temple.
“Oh,” she said softly, with a flutter of her lashes. “I do believe I’m getting one of my dreadful headaches. Such a pity, I was enjoying myself.”
Several ladies offered murmurs of sympathy, and Lady Farnsworth immediately rang for a footman.
